


The Oracles on the Delphi Express

by sevenofspade



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Roadtrip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 15:37:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3416135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenofspade/pseuds/sevenofspade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annabeth says "yes" where she might once have said "no" and goes on a road trip with Luke. Things go downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Annabeth

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set after _The Titan's Curse_. It was written for the most part before _Blood of Olympus_ came out and canon from that book does not apply. Any deviation from previous canon is probably intentional.
> 
> Much thanks are owed to [Minutia_R](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/pseuds/Minutia_R) without whom this fic would not look the way it does.
> 
> The title comes from [the song of the same name by The Dear Hunter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yABRtv_Qtbg).

The girl pretending to be a statue was wearing green body paint the precise shade of the Oracle's smoke and Annabeth most resolutely did not take either that or the fact that her dress looked like it belonged to the Oracle too as an omen.

"Say yes, Annabeth Chase," the girl said. 

She was gone before Annabeth could ask 'yes to what?' or how the girl knew her name.

It was three a.m. that very same night when Annabeth woke up in a cold sweat from a dream of a green-eyed Luke sliding her knife between his ribs under his left arm. 

She walked to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of milk and tried to pretend when she drank it that it was washing away the taste of blood and broken dreams in the back of her throat.

She had never been very good at lying to herself.

She went back to her room, careful not to wake anyone. Efforts that where promptly rendered somewhat pointless by the crash of something against her window. She opened her window and found a golden drachma lying precariously on the ledge. It looked dented.

"Who's there?" she called out into the night. "Show yourself."

"We need to talk," Luke said, stepping out of the shadows. He had an expression on his face she'd never seen before, so it took her a moment to place it. He was scared. No. More than that, he was terrified.

Annabeth thought about her father and his family asleep and oblivious to the war that had come knocking on her window. Then she thought about how she'd never seen Luke look this scared before. 

"Not here," she said.

Luke's shoulders sagged with relief.

Annabeth grabbed her emergency pack, her laptop and her shoes. She had a feeling she wouldn't be coming back. It wasn't a bad feeling, but with Luke here it could only mean one thing. She strapped her knife to her thigh over her flannel pyjamas. Luke was unarmed, but Annabeth knew better than to think that would make it an easy fight.

She jumped out of the window and left her house keys inside. Luke was no vampire, but that did not mean inviting him was a good idea.

She led Luke into the plane hangar. Luke's nose scrunched up at the smell of kerosene. They'd refilled the tank that evening and Annabeth had to admit that even if you were used to it, the smell was overpowering.

"What do you want?" Annabeth said as she unsheathed her knife. She didn't want to mistrust Luke, but she had no choice.

"I want, no, I need your help. Annabeth, please." In the dim light, Luke's scar looked fresh and raw.

"What with?"

As an answer, Luke took the welding torch from the work bench. Annabeth shifted to a defensive position as he turned it on; he might be Luke, but he was still her enemy. Instead of attacking her, Luke turned the flame on himself.

Annabeth cried out. He might be her enemy, but he was still Luke. What was he doing?

Luke turned the flame off, showing her his unblemished skin through the burning hole in his shirt. 

"Nice abs," Annabeth said, as nonchalantly as she could to cover the fact that Luke’s little drama queen number had scared her and win herself time to figure out what, exactly, had happened. "Also, your shirt is on fire."

"I know," Luke said, the way he might once had told her he had trained her well.

"So," Annabeth said when Luke's shirt stopped being on fire. "The mark of Achilles. Why?"

Luke looked away and gripped his elbows. "Kronos needs a host." Annabeth must have looked as confused as she felt, because he added, "A host capable of surviving his true form."

"The mark of Achilles," Annabeth repeated. It wasn't even dawn yet, she'd been awake for ten minutes and she had already found out more about Kronos' plan than anyone had in months. The day was either off to a great start or a terrible one. It was three a.m. and Luke was slated to become a Titan's meat puppet. Terrible seemed likelier.

"Yes," Luke said. He took off what was left of his shirt and touched a spot under his left arm -- the same spot as the one where he'd stabbed himself in her dream -- and she knew what he was going to say before he said it. "This is my weak spot."

Sometimes Annabeth hated being right.

Annabeth barely brushed it with her fingertips but Luke still flinched away as though he'd been punched. She said, "Why are you telling me this?"

"To prove this isn't a trick. Please, Annabeth, please. I can't do this on my own." Luke shivered, grabbed a flying jacket from a hanger and put it on. The sleeves went down past his fingers.

"You could have sworn on the Styx," Annabeth said. As soon as she said it, she knew it was a stupid thing to say. He wore the mark of Achilles; the Styx had already done to him everything it could. "What do you need help with?"

"Run away with me," Luke said. "Together we can make it. Please?"

"Yes," Annabeth said.

It was only much later, when she was buckling her belt in Luke's car, that she remembered the words of the would-be Oracle. _Say yes, Annabeth Chase_. Annabeth had and now she was going to have to live with it.

For however long she had left to live.

When they got to the car, Luke opened the truck and the bag inside to pull out a new shirt and put it on. He folded the jacket and left in the mail box.

"Where did you get your driving license?" Annabeth asked as Luke put the key in the ignition. 

"What driving license?" Luke smiled and looked so much like his old self for a moment that Annabeth almost expected Thalia to kick his seat from behind and tell him to put pedal to the metal. He started driving. 

"Where are we going?" Annabeth said as she buckled her seatbelt. There were maps for the greater San Francisco area -- and, weirdly enough, Anchorage -- in the glove box.

"Away."

"Get driving, then."

Luke got driving.

Annabeth slept. She dreamt of May Castellan serving peanut butter sandwiches and Kool-Aid to the Oracle's mummy and a girl with red hair and the same glowing green eyes as the other two. She woke up with the taste of liquid fire on her tongue. 

She rolled down her window and put out her hand. The dream slipped away with the wind through her fingers.

On the edge of the city was a hitchhiker. She was Annabeth's age, had red hair and carried an overnight bag. Her sign said 'AWAY'.

Luke pulled over. Annabeth made a questioning face at him. 

"She's human," Luke said. "We're demigods. She'll hide us." He didn't say 'from Kronos' or 'from Camp Half-Blood', but Annabeth heard the words anyway. It was a good point.

The girl ran over. "Hi. I'm Rachel."

There was something familiar about her, something about her face and voice that made Annabeth think they'd met before. She shrugged it off. She'd remember those poison green eyes.

"Annabeth." She held out her hand.

Rachel switched out her grip on an electric blue hairbrush to shake it. Annabeth wasn't sure she wanted to know what was up with that. In fact, she thought as Rachel put the hairbrush away after Luke introduced himself, she was very sure she didn't want to know.

Rachel struggled to get her bag into the back seat. No surprises there, given how big and heavy it was. What was she keeping in there, a dead body?

"There's traffic up ahead. You should take the next exit," Rachel said as she sat down in the backseat. Her voice sounded tight, like she was afraid they wouldn't or they'd think she was bossy.

Luke nodded, as if to say, 'probably best if we don't stay in the same place too long'. He took the next exit to nowhere. 

Annabeth drowsed some more as Luke drove until Rachel punched her in the arm.

"Do you see that?" Rachel was pointing in front of the car at the space between the two tunnels. 

"See what?" Annabeth asked. "Also ow."

"You've had worse," Rachel said like she'd been there for it. She kept pointing. She waggled her arm between the front seats. "Over there, look!"

"Rachel," Luke said. "There’s nothing there."

"Just look! There's a girl in armour fighting some sort of snake women." Maybe Rachel said more, but Annabeth didn't hear her if she did. She was too busy unfastening her seatbelt as Luke slammed on the brakes. Their car got rear-ended.

"Go," Luke said. "I'll get our stuff, you get the dracanae."

Annabeth got out of the car and unsheathed her knife. She was starting to see the fight, but it was still mostly a blur.

"On your left!" Rachel shouted.

Annabeth ducked. A whoosh of air passed where her head had been. She stabbed up. Her knife slid between scales and ribs and gold dust got in her eyes. She shook it off. A dracanae aimed her spear at her, but got hit in the eye by Rachel's blue hairbrush. Annabeth ran over to shove her knife in the dracanae's eye, killing her. 

This time when the dust settled, Annabeth could see the fight clearly. The girl was wearing armour, but it wasn't Greek. It looked almost... Roman?

She was also fighting three more dracanae so Annabeth decided the question of her armour's provenance could wait. She rushed the closest snake woman, feinting low and left, hitting high and right. Her knife caught in the dracanae's armour. The girl drove her sword down into their opponent's neck, causing another explosion of gold dust. Annabeth looked up at her and they nodded at each other before going back to the fight. The girl locked swords with the dracanae behind her and Annabeth turned to the other one. 

Luke was hitting it repeatedly over the head with Annabeth's laptop while Rachel was taking her sword to give to Luke. Luke _changed_ when his hand touched the sword. He beheaded the dracanae with a single blow. His face was that mixture of joy and ruthlessness that always made Annabeth feel safe. It was the face of the best swordsman in the last three hundred years. It was the most Luke-ish of all of Luke's faces. Annabeth was proud to call him her friend. 

The fight was over in moments.

A last cloud of dust got blown away by the wind. Annabeth, Luke and the girl started cleaning their weapons as Rachel picked up her hairbrush. 

"Thanks for that," the girl said. "I'm Gwen."

"Rachel," Rachel said then pointed at each of them in turn. "Annabeth. Luke. What was that?"

"Dracanae," Annabeth said. 

"They work for Kronos," Luke added darkly.

Gwen frowned. "Are you demigods?"

There was a moment of silence as Annabeth and Luke tried to figure out how to answer that. 

"Demi what now?" Rachel asked. She was taking it surprisingly well, Annabeth thought. 

"Never mind that," Gwen said, growing pale as she looked behind them. "Get inside the tunnel. Now."

They got inside the tunnel. Gwen shut it down and locked it behind them. Annabeth felt like she was being locked in rather than the monsters being locked out. 

They stepped out into the light. Annabeth stopped walking in shock and Rachel walked into her. 

"Since when," Annabeth asked, "are there Roman ruins in California?"

Gwen looked offended. "New Rome's not a ruin."

"I thought Rome was the Eternal City," Rachel said. "Why do you need a new one?" 

Gwen got flustered and turned to Luke. "Any more comments from the peanut gallery?"

Luke was silent. Eventually, he shook his head. "No."

"Good. Reyna and Jason will explain everything better than me." Gwen started walking down the hill, towards the river. 

Annabeth and Luke looked at each other then looked at Rachel. She looked back at them and walked down the hill, dragging her bag behind her. It bumped on very stone on the path; she winced every time it did. Annabeth took her backpack from Luke. Luke shoved the dracanae's sword through his belt. They walked down the hill. 

Gwen was tapping her foot and Rachel was crossing the river when they got there, her bag already on the other side. Annabeth took off her shoes and socks before rolling up her pants. She tried very hard not to laugh at the fact that she was knee deep in a river in the Legotown version of Ancient Rome and still wearing her pyjamas. 

When she reached the other bank, she was surprised not to find Luke next to her. 

He was standing on the other band and looking at the river with an unreadable look on his face. 

"The Little Tiber doesn't bite," Gwen said.

"No, I suppose not." Luke stepped into the river and it grabbed him hungrily, pulling him down in depths it didn't have.

The water closed over his head. Then the tips of the fingers of his outstretched arms disappeared too and the river might as well have been the Acheron for how little Annabeth could see in its currents.

It was as though Luke had never been.


	2. Luke

Luke sank.

For the longest time, he didn't stop sinking.

He felt as though he was back in the Styx again, casting away his mortal life. It was a good feeling, this time. Perhaps because he'd chosen it. But then again, he'd chosen it last time too, hadn't he? And look where that had landed him.

He sighed. The bubble drifted up, towards the surface and Luke drifted down, towards the depths as he let himself be tempted by the water luring him to sleep. No more Kronos. No more war. No more dracanae. No more Annabeth. No more Mark of Achilles. 

No more Annabeth?

Luke panicked. He couldn't leave her. Not again. Not after Thalia, not after him the first time and especially not after Thalia again. It would _break_ her and Luke had never -- not ever -- wanted her hurt.

So he struggled and fought against the water pulling him down, but the more he tried swimming, the more he kept sinking. 

He kicked the riverbed, trying to get back to the surface -- how far could it be? --, but his foot sank in the mud up to the ankle. When the mud reached his calf, Luke was seeing red around the edges of his tunnelling vision and someone was trying to pull him up. 

It was no use. The water turned and churned and called Luke a traitorous Greek as it pulled him down deeper.

Another hand grabbed his wrist and his descent slowed. 

Then stopped. 

Then reversed.

Luke broke the surface and breathed, water running down in his face and down his throat. It tasted like pit-scorpion poison, burning and bitter, but the air was the sweetest Luke had ever breathed. 

He collapsed on the shore, pins and needles stabbing at the inside of his skin and lungs.

He was still breathing as Gwen checked his pulse, Annabeth let go of his hand and Rachel of his wrist. 

"Go Team Half-Blood," Rachel said. She was out of breath. Luke knew the feeling. 

"Demigods," Gwen corrected. "You're demigods, not half-bloods."

Rachel got up and dusted herself off, her eyes unnaturally green. "I thought the river didn't bite."

"It doesn't," Gwen said. Was that an elephant Luke heard behind her?

"Then why is Luke bleeding?" Rachel asked as she handed Annabeth her hairbrush. 

"I'm not bleeding," Luke said. Drowning was one of the few ways he could still die and Annabeth had just saved him from that. 

"Yes," Annabeth said, "you are." She grabbed his hand and showed him the scratches her nails had left on the back of it.

"I'm bleeding," Luke said and realised he was crying.

Over his head, Gwen clapped. "Congratulations, you're as human as the rest of us. Can we go now?"

Luke laughed. Gwen had no idea how right she was. Annabeth pulled him to his feet and into a hug.

"Congrats, you big idiot," she said, quiet enough that no one else would hear.

Luke was still bleeding by the time they got to the camp, so he wasn't really paying attention to his surroundings, because he was human again. The water had tried to kill and had only succeeded in rendering him unable to withstand a Titan's true form. He could no longer be possessed by Kronos for longer than a handful of seconds. It was a death, but a slow one. He no longer had to fight this war he'd started if he didn't want to.

"You'll have to consult the auguries before you can join the Legion," Gwen said. 

Luke looked up at that. He was done joining things without reading the fine print. "What's the Legion?"

"Yeah," Rachel said, "and what if we don't want to join it?"

"Then you can't stay at Camp," Gwen said. 

"Then I guess we won't stay at Camp," Luke said. 

"Maybe," Annabeth said, putting a hand on his arm. "First, we will consult the auguries."

If Annabeth wanted to consult the auguries, Annabeth must have had a good reason. If there was one thing Luke knew, it was that Annabeth always had a good reason. Luke nodded at Gwen to lead the way. For some reason, Rachel was frowning and hugging her bag protectively as best as she could. 

The auguries turned out to be a skinny blond-ish white guy with a knife. Luke put his hand on the handle of his sword. It was no Backbiter, but it was better than nothing. 

"I'm Octavian," the auguries said, grabbing a stuffed animal. "You want to join the Legion?"

Luke didn't like the way Octavian said 'you', like they were worth less than his stuffed animals. None of them said anything. 

Octavian ripped open the stuffed animal and started sifting through the stuffing, muttering to himself. Eventually, he looked up. "I'm going to have to do personal predictions; the auguries feel they should both be judged separately."

"Come the fuck on. That's just bullshit," Rachel said. Her eyes widened and she tried to fade into the marble background.

Octavian boggled. Even Gwen looked surprised. Then Octavian scrunched up his face like an angry weasel.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?"

"No." Rachel sounded afraid. She set her jaw. "Is this were you pretend you saw me in a vision or something? Because you're so bad at this you wouldn't even know the Oracle of Delphi if it was in the room with you."

"You're Rachel Elizabeth Dare! My mother does business with Dare Enterprises," Octavian said. He sounded like he expected everyone -- not just Rachel -- to recognise him.

"I am not," Rachel said. She looked away, posture stiff, and just barely stopped herself from covering her mouth with her hand. She was lying, and badly.

"You're not what?" The new speaker was a buff, tanned and blond white guy with a scar through his lip. He looked like a surfer who'd gone to boot camp.

Luke moved between him and Rachel, pulling his sword half an inch out of his belt. He trusted Annabeth to cover Octavian should it come to a fight. It was a shame about Gwen, but he trusted Rachel more than her. Rachel had given him a sword and helped save his life, while Gwen had taken the mark of Achilles from him. Rachel had been the first person in a very long time to look at him and see just Luke. 

"Nothing." Rachel's voice came slightly to the left of where she'd been before. Good. She'd be out of the way and easier to protect. Luke didn't look, but he had a feeling she'd taken her hairbrush out. 

"Didn't sound like nothing," Surfer Dude said, then he looked at Octavian and added, "Or maybe it was. I'm Jason Grace." He held out his hand. He had eleven marks tattooed on his arm under PQRS -- no, SPQR -- and an eagle with outstretched wings. Dude was really rocking the 'Fuck yeah, Rome' look.

"Annabeth Lee." There was something in her voice that told Luke Jason's last name -- _Thalia_ 's last name -- had rattled her as well. 

He frowned. Wasn't Lee her step-mother's name? Worse, wasn’t that a poem by Edgar Allan Poe? But no one seemed to pick up on it, so Luke chalked that up to Poe being too late, history-wise, to gain any traction in Roman Empire Redux.

"Luke Garrick," he said, and where had that come from? He shook Jason's hand. More fool Jason if he thought that meant Luke couldn't draw his sword. Although Luke was starting to understand that Jason was no fool. His handshake was firm, but he didn't try to crush Luke's fingers, the way a lot of boys and men with shoulders that wide would have. Smart and handsome, what was the world coming to?

An ending at his hand and Kronos'.

Not if he could stop it.

"Like the first Flash? Cool," Jason said, oblivious. Luke's confusion had to show on his face, because next Jason smiled and added, "How about we leave Octavian to his toys and I give you the grand tour?" He wasn't saying it like a threat, but his grip tightened around Luke's hand. For now it was best to follow Jason out. 

And if that angered Octavian, so much the better. Luke really really didn't like it when people looked at him like he wasn't even there. He had had enough of that from his mother. 

As soon as they were out of the temple, Annabeth started asking questions.

"Do you know who built the city? Who designed this building?" Annabeth pointed at a temple on the left side of the street.

Jason looked around like the answer was written in the architecture. To Annabeth it most likely was, but not to Jason. His answer was a very non-committal, "Hum, no?"

"Some tour guide you are." Annabeth huffed as she passed Jason on her way down the steps.

"We should ask for a refund," Luke added, holding his arm out to Rachel. She switched her bag around to take it and they walked out together, leaving Jason to scramble after them. 

Once they were in the street, Rachel started rubbing at her forehead. The incense inside the temple had been cloyingly sweet and still seemed to be stuck to the back of Luke's throat. 

"Not now," Rachel said, her fingers digging painfully into Luke's arm as she leaned too hard against him, "please, not now."

"Are you okay?" Annabeth had stopped watching the architecture to watch Rachel, who was starting to turn a little green around the edges. She moved to feel Rachel's forehead.

Rachel jerked back.

Rachel gripped Luke with both hands and hard enough to break the skin. When she looked up at him, her eyes were solid blocks of green smoke and her voice wasn't her own. "Luke?" She closed her eyes, opened them and was herself again. "I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" Annabeth asked as she unpried Rachel's fingers from Luke's arm. 

Luke didn't move. 

"It's passed now," Rachel said. She looked at her hands and the blood on Luke's arm. "Did I do that?"

Luke didn't answer.

That wasn't possible. It couldn't be. He must be seeing things. He had to be. The alternative was too terrible and confusing to contemplate.

"Yes," he finally told Rachel. He tried a smile. "I think that river had it in for me. I haven't gotten a scratch in months and now twice in one day."

"Sorry," Rachel said. She was about to say more but stopped herself.

Luke took a couple of steps forward after Annabeth and was about to ask why she wasn’t following when an elephant barrelled up the street.

Luke lost his train of thought.

Seriously. Elephant. _What_.

"Hi, Hannibal! Bye, Hannibal!" Jason said, catching up with then overtaking them and waving at the elephant. "Come on, let's get going."

"You have an elephant called Hannibal?" Annabeth asked. She wasn't just surprised; she was also judging Jason's good taste and lack thereof. Mostly lack thereof. 

"Yeah," Jason said. He turned around to continue speaking to Annabeth face to face and his million watts smile quickly faded. "Everyone likes Hannibal. Are you sure your friend is fine?"

Luke turned to Rachel. Annabeth took a step back to come stand next to him, close enough to touch. Rachel's head was thrown back, green smoke pouring out of her mouth. Suddenly Luke was five years old again and watching his mother have an episode. Annabeth touched the back of his hand. Luke slammed back into the present and forced himself to stop shaking. 

" _Seven half-bloods shall answer the call,_  
To storm or fire, the world must fall,  
An oath to keep with a final breath,  
And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death," Rachel said in the Oracle's voice. She went limp as the last word left her mouth and collapsed to the ground in a heap.

"Hum," Jason said, "wow. Does she normally do that?"

"The Oracle of Delphi!" Octavian burst out of the temple. 

"Shit," Annabeth said and started running after the elephant.

Luke picked Rachel up in a firefighter carry as she was struggling back to her feet and followed Annabeth. She was already on the elephant, turning it around somehow. Rachel stood up in Luke's arms and reached for Annabeth. 

Their hands connected. 

Annabeth pulled and Luke pushed until Rachel was sitting on the elephant, her bag still slung over her back. Luke was starting to have a very good idea of what was in that bag. He didn't like it.

They were almost at the river now. Luke jumped. Annabeth caught him and pulled him aboard.

"How do you drive this thing?" Rachel asked. 

"Just hold on!"

They crashed out of the valley and into rush hour traffic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Luke is thinking of is [Annabel Lee](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Works_of_the_Late_Edgar_Allan_Poe/Volume_2/Annabel_Lee).


	3. Silena

Silena's wrist was throbbing. Sighing, she reached out to look at it. Luke's charm on her bracelet was glowing. 

Shit.

What did he want? They weren't supposed to talk until next Thursday, unless something big happened at Camp Half-Blood. 

Oh no. 

He couldn't be calling about that, could he? There was no way he could know about that. The only reason Silena even knew was because she'd been the one to find out. The only others who knew were Chiron and Mister D and Silena figured neither of them would betray Camp Half-Blood, so it had to be a coincidence. Had to be. 

Silena pressed the bracelet's scythe charm against her arm with her thumb. The edges of it dug into her skin unpleasantly. "Luke Castellan, it is five in the fucking morning."

_Sorry._ You could say many things about Luke, but you couldn't say he wasn't polite. _I need your help, Silena. You're the only person I can turn to right now._ Or charming. She could hear the smile in his voice.

Silena thought briefly about expressing her doubts, but decided against it. She couldn't afford to antagonise him. "Okay. What's going on? What do you need?"

There was a pause during which Silena could practically see Luke bite his lip. He had a way of doing it -- biting just one side -- that made it look like he was grinning mischievously at the same time. It was a good look on him. Then again, all looks were good looks on him. Back before Luke betrayed the Camp -- and he had made even that look good, damn him -- there been jokes that it was a good thing Hermes had claimed Luke, because otherwise he would have been shuffled off to the Aphrodite cabin. The only time she had ever heard him comment on one of them was the time she'd heard him mutter 'I wish' bitterly and she'd asked him 'you want my job, Castellan?'. He'd laughed until he cried. At the time, she'd just thought he was tired from his quest, but now she knew better. 

Luke had never liked talking about his dad, even then. Now it wasn't even worth talking about. 

_I'm not sure what's going on. I need three hot meals, spare clothes and somewhere to park an elephant._

"An elephant?" Silena could do the first two, but an elephant?

_Long story. Do you still live outside Alameda?_ Then he rattled off her address.

"Yes," she said.

_Good._ A pause, like he was listening to someone. _Silena Beauregard. I'll explain later. Don't tell Annabeth._ To Silena, he added, _We'll be right there._

'We'? Who was 'we'? Had Luke kidnapped Annabeth? The two had always been close; Silena couldn't imagine Luke hurting Annabeth. That wasn't it, then. Had Annabeth gone willingly? That Silena could believe all too readily. 

She felt a stab of anger at the idea of Annabeth betraying Camp, then she laughed at herself under her breath, because she really had no place to talk.

An elephant trumpeted outside her window; she would find out who 'we' were soon enough. 

But seriously. An elephant?

She rushed down the stairs and thanked whichever god was listening that the house was empty this week; she had no idea how she would explain any of this to her dad. She owed Mr Dare for insisting his favourite chocolatier come with him on his trip; apparently his daughter had insisted.

Silena jumped down the last couple of steps, opened the door and stopped in her tracks.

There was indeed an elephant in the driveway. It was wearing body armour and was helpfully labelled 'Elephant' on its side. 

Annabeth and Luke were helping a skinny white girl with a blue hairbrush stuck in her red hair to get down from it. They had their backs to her, but the skinny girl waved at her over their heads. Her smile was watery and her limbs looked disjointed, or too stiff.

"Hi," Silena said as she waved back.

Annabeth turned around. Her eyes grew large enough that Silena could see why the owl was Athena's symbol. She turned back to Luke and punched him in the arm, hard enough for him to almost fall over. "Luke! What did you do? We said no one from Camp Half-Blood."

"Camp Half-Blood...? Gods, how many of you are there?" asked the skinny white girl, now on her feet beside Annabeth. She was taller, but not by much. 

'Gods'. That was a strange thing for someone to say in this day and age. She could be a demi-god, but Silena had never seen her at Camp, and Silena knew everyone at Camp. Besides, if she'd been at Camp, she would be asking about it. Could she be a demi-god the satyrs had overlooked? It was possible. She didn't look that much older than Annabeth and if her godly parent was one of the minor deities, she might not be too much of a target for monsters yet. Had Luke picked her up as a recruit for Kronos?

There was no point in asking about that, though, so she settled for, "How many of us what? I'm Silena, by the way."

"I know," the girl said, her voice an odd mix of sad, wistful and happy -- Silena was good at emotions, it was An Aphrodite Thing, and one of the more useful ones -- but she didn't sound like she was lying.

Definitely a demi-god. Some of the Apollo kids had some measure of prophecy; it was mostly useless stuff, like waking up before the alarm every day, or, yes, knowing someone's name before they introduced themselves.

"Please tell me you have food," Annabeth said.

"I have food." Silena nodded towards the house. "Why don't you come in? I'll make eggs."

"What is it with you and eggs?" Luke asked as he followed the others inside the house.

"Everybody needs a hobby," Silena said. "Mine is eggs. Yours is world destruction."

Luke opened his mouth like he was going to protest, seemed to think better of it and tipped his head at her. "Fair point, well made."

She smiled back at him. She'd thought so too. Just because she was spying for Kronos didn't mean she had to like it. 

She had no idea if the girls liked eggs -- she thought Annabeth did, but she didn't know for sure -- but she knew Luke did. He'd complained more than once about the Stolls’ pranks wasting good eggs. Once, he had even humoured her and listened to her increasingly erratic complaints about the œufs à la coque of Camp Half-Blood, as she tried to get them like her grandma had made them. When she'd broken down crying because it had finally hit her that she would never eat œufs à la coque like her grandma used to make because _her grandma was dead_ , he'd held her as she cried. It'd been just after his first meeting as Counsellor for the Hermes cabin.

For breakfast/dinner/whichever meal this was supposed to be, Silena made eggs. She made fried eggs; she made scrambled eggs. She made œufs à la coque. She made omelettes; she made egg salad. 

"Silena," Luke said while she was making poached eggs. "Silena, stop."

Silena cracked one last egg into the boiling water and turned around. Annabeth had pushed her plate of scrambled eggs away and was sleeping with her head in her arms. The other girl hadn't even pushed her plate away and was getting omelette in her hair. Luke had drawn a curve with ketchup on his plate, turning fried eggs into a smiley face. No one had even touched the egg salad. 

Silena hadn't been paying attention to anything beyond the motions of cooking. If she had, she might have had to consider what she was supposed to do about the fact that the man who had started this war was making ketchup faces in his plate -- besides take the ketchup away from him before he tried turning his Modigliani into a Picasso or a Rembrandt. She couldn't call Camp Half-Blood without having to explain why he had picked her house to crash his elephant into. She couldn't call the police, because Annabeth probably hadn't been reported as missing yet and, again, elephant in the driveway. The elephant and the fact that Luke had been the one to bring it here were really the main problems with calling anyone.

"Do elephants eat eggs?" Silena asked.

"I don't know," Luke said, "but I wouldn't risk it. Do you have anything to put these in?"

"Left cabinet, top shelf," Silena said. When Luke got up, she added, "What happened?"

"I ran away," Luke said as he started packing up the eggs in the boxes.

"Yes, I can see that, but why?" She joined him and could only hope there would be enough space in her fridge for all of it. She truly hated wasting food.

Luke set the box way harder than necessary on the countertop. "Why do you care?"

"Because I'm your friend, Castellan, don't be a moron."

"Are you?" It was a good thing Luke was handling scrambled eggs, because he would have broken anything else.

"Yes." Silena couldn't charmspeak, but she tried anyway. Luke was her friend and had been her friend ever since she'd taught him pegasus riding.

Maybe he believed her, maybe he didn't, but he didn't bring it up again.

They finished putting the eggs away. Silena carefully raised the other girl's head while Luke took the plate and threw the food away. Luke picked Annabeth up and laid her on the couch facing the TV. 

Silena picked up the other girl and laid her on the other couch. "Who is she, anyway?"

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare," Luke said, like that was supposed to mean something to Silena. Sure, the last name sounded familiar, but it was a common one. "She's mortal. I think."

"You think?" Silena raised an eyebrow at him. The girl had to be fourteen or fifteen; if she was a demigod, she would be dead. She really didn't have the muscle tone to fight monsters.

Luke got up and walked out the window onto the terrace. Silena followed him. He waved his hand in the porch light and motes of dust started dancing around his fingers.

"I think," he started and fell silent. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she could tell he was bracing himself. "Silena, is the Oracle still at Camp Half-Blood?"

Oh shit.

Oh _shit_.

"Yes."

Luke pulled his hand back from the light. The scarred side of his face was hidden in the shadows so he just looked curious instead of accusatory.

"Where else would it be?" She tried a smile. She didn't think it was a very convincing smile, but Luke seemed to buy it.

He walked back into the house. Silena stayed on the porch.

She watched the dawn's golden fingers creep over the horizon as the night folded in front of her.

There was a quartz crystal in the wind chimes and all it took to create a rainbow was to give it a little push into the porch light. Iris still owed her a favour from her quest, so Silena didn't bother with an offering; she didn't have a drachma on her, anyway.

"Thalia Grace."


	4. Thalia

Thalia was stabbing a vrykolakas in the face when the Iris message came. She stabbed it some more then turned to the message. It was one of the Aphrodite kids (as evidenced by the brightly dyed hair that didn't look garish but in fact suited her perfectly, because of course it did), the African-American one -- no, she was French, she'd said. She was the cabin counsellor, wasn't she?

What was her name again? "Silena?"

"Yes. Are you busy?" It was night, wherever she was, which was weird since it was the middle of the day in France. (The Blessing of Artemis came with a perfect sense of directions and knowledge of time zones.)

Thalia stabbed the vrykolakas one more time. "Not really."

"Good. I... have something of a problem," Silena said as somewhere behind her, an elephant trumpeted. 

"I know fuckall about elephants," Thalia said. Even though she did know one thing about elephants, but she figured knowing that Jason had been mesmerised by the flying scenes in _Dumbo_ before -- before, would be of absolutely no help to Silena.

Silena shook her head. "That's not the problem. Well, it is _a_ problem, but it's not why I'm calling."

"What's your problem, then?" Thalia asked as she planted her feet in the vrykolakas' chest to get enough leverage to wrench her knife out of its eye socket.

"His name is Luke Castellan."

The knife came loose and Thalia stumbled backwards, almost falling on her ass. She shook her head. She had to have heard that wrong. She said, "Come again?"

"Luke Castellan is in my house, probably helping himself to the good booze," Silena said. She was smiling, because she realised exactly how weird what she was saying was.

"Why the fuck is Luke Castellan in your house?" Thalia said as she reversed the grip on her knife.

"Because he ran away with Annabeth and I live outside Alameda," Silena said. An elephant's trunk started patting her head. 

"I will be right there," Thalia said.

The Iris message ended and Thalia unclenched her jaw. Ow. She'd bitten the inside of her lip while she was gritting her teeth.

Annabeth. Annabeth was alone with Luke and there would be hell to pay if he had hurt her. Fuck Olympus, fuck Artemis and fuck all their rules. If it took burning Alameda to the ground to stop Luke hurting Annabeth, Thalia would do it gladly, and if he had hurt her already, there would be nowhere for him to hide. She would follow him to Tartarus if she had to, to make sure he would pay.

She brought two fingers to her lips and whistled. To the first Hunter who showed up, she said, "Nat, you're in charge. I have something I need to take care off."

Maybe leaving comment to Nat wasn't the greatest idea, but the girl would have to learn to assert herself sooner or later. She reminded Thalia uncomfortably of Bianca before she had become a Hunter, sometimes. Phoebe would be there in case anything in particular needed some expert... expertise, but it really shouldn't take that long for Thalia to pound Luke's face into rubble.

It was night where Silena was and tonight the moon was waning. Thalia stepped into a moonbeam in New Jersey and stepped out of it in California.

Silena got to her feet when she saw her. "That was fast."

"Where's Luke?" Thalia asked and pushed past Silena without waiting for an answer. 

The light in the living room was low, only the beginning of dawn filtering through half-closed blinds, but the Blessing of Artemis had given Thalia the eyes of a cat and twilight was were cats' eyes were the most efficient. There were two girls asleep on couches arranged in an L-shape, their heads close together almost to touching. One of them was Annabeth; the other was not and her feet dangled off her couch. She shivered violently, her whole body crunching down. Thalia wondered for a moment if that was the face she made when she was having Demi-God Bad Dreams TM, but since they looked unharmed, she moved back on to looking for Luke. Luke wasn't in the room, but there was someone in the kitchen.

Thalia left the girls sleeping on their couches, watched over by the pictures of various views of the French coast of the Mediterranean on the walls. She tried her best not to stomp her feet as she marched to the kitchen, but judging by Silena's cringe every time her feet hit the floorboard, she wasn't succeeding. Aside from not waking Annabeth, she couldn't have cared less about the noise she was making. 

Luke was pouring himself a drink when Thalia walked into the kitchen. It wasn't his first one, by the looks of it. 

"Hey, Thalia, hey," he said, voice slightly slurred. He held his glass out to her. "Want some?"

Definitely not his first glass. Thalia struck it out of his hand. It shattered on the floor, spilling amber liquid that smelled like aniseed.

"Oops." Luke giggled. Thalia hadn't even known he could do that. 

"How much have you had?" There was no point in getting angry -- well, angrier -- at him if he was too drunk to remember it. And, dammit, she wanted a fight. Fighting Luke when he was this drunk would mean nothing.

"Two," he said, holding up three fingers, then hastily folding down one. Thalia didn't need that to see it was clearly a lie. He couldn't be this drunk on two glasses of whatever 'pastis' was. 

"He means eight," Silena said. "You're supposed to dilute pastis before you drink it." She wrinkled her nose like she was going to go on about How To Drink Pastis Properly. 

Luke nodded like this was very important information Silena was giving him. 

"What the hell," Thalia shouted, "do you think you're doing?"

"Getting drunk," Luke said, sounding surprisingly sober.

"Why are you shouting?" someone asked. Thalia turned around. It was Not-Annabeth who was yawning and rubbing her eyes like the colour was scratching at the inside of her eyelids.

"I'm shouting," Thalia said, keeping her voice down to let Annabeth sleep, "because he kidnapped Annabeth and probably you."

Not-Annabeth yawned again and then shook her head. "He didn't kidnap me and Annabeth saved his life so I don't think he works for Kronos anymore."

"How do you know about that?" Annabeth asked as she walked into the kitchen. 

Not-Annabeth paled. Then she yawned and wow, how tired must she be? She had bags under her eyes that made her look like a washed-out panda in the kitchen's harsh electrical light. When was the last time she'd slept?

"She's my mom," Luke said, which. What? He frowned. He made the hand gesture for "cuckoo for cocoa puffs" in the general vicinity of his eyes. "You know, with the green."

"Your mom does that too?" There was something like hope in Not-Annabeth's voice. 

Luke grabbed the bottle and took a long drink straight out of it. Silena took the bottle away from him. She put it away on the highest shelf, where no one else would be able to get to it. Damn, but Silena was _tall_.

"Yeah," Thalia clarified, "his mom does that too. What do you mean he isn't working for Kronos anymore?"

Luke stabbed himself under the shoulder, for some reason, then started getting up. Silena pushed him back down in his chair, her face in the international bartender expression for 'I'm cutting you off, mate, you're in no state to walk home, much less drive'. (And, indeed, the last time Thalia had seen that expression, Phoebe had missed the door entirely and left the bar through the window instead to fall on her face in the street. Good thing that small Scottish towns along the Moray Firth didn't have much traffic at too-drunk-to-read-the-time o'clock.)

(And sure, maybe Thalia wasn't old enough to drink, even accounting for the time she'd been a tree, but given that she was now immortal and would never be sixteen, much less twenty-one, the legal age for her to drink was now 'never' and fuck that shit.)

"Kronos needs a host," Annabeth said, a propos of nothing. "Someone who has the mark of Achilles, to withstand his true form."

"That's bullshit," Thalia said, because no way was Annabeth implying what Thalia thought she was -- oh, who was Thalia kidding, of course she was and, being Annabeth, eleven to ten she was right. You needed a mother's blessing for the mark of Achilles and May Castellan was in no condition to give anyone anything, except the heebie-jeebies.

"Annabeth," Thalia continued, "Luke's playing you. I don't know what he told you, but he was lying."

"He wasn't! He had the mark of Achilles," Annabeth said. 

"Then why is he bleeding?" Thalia asked. 

Annabeth looked down. "He doesn't have it anymore."

"That's awfully convenient." Thalia rolled her eyes. Annabeth had always had a soft spot for Luke, but Thalia hadn't thought it would blind her this much. 

"There was a river," Not-Annabeth offered, because _that_ made sense. 

"He wasn't lying," Annabeth said, but Annabeth, like Thalia, could not quite believe that Luke was evil. Not _Luke_. Not Luke, who had bandaged Annabeth's twisted ankles more than once. Not Luke, who had regaled them both with stories of his father on many sleepless nights. Not Luke, who Thalia had sacrificed her life for. She had never thought Luke would render her sacrifice worthless, but he had.

And so what if she was alive again now because of him? So what if destroying Olympus would have avenged her? That had nothing to do with anything. 

"We could just ask her," Annabeth said. "If we ask her, she'll tell us."

It took Thalia a moment to realise Annabeth was talking about Luke's mom. "She'll just offer us peanut-butter sandwiches and kool-aid."

"She had to give her blessing. Had to have." Annabeth's eyes had gone steely, like storms in teacups the size of dimes.

"If," Not-Annabeth said and she cringed and shrunk back when Thalia turned to look at her, but continued with, "if she does do the green thing, I'd like to meet her. It's kind of an embarrassing thing to do."

Annabeth moved closer to Not-Annabeth and glared at Thalia. Like it was Thalia's fault the girl had such bad judgement she wanted to meet May Castellan.

"Fine," Thalia said, "but Luke better still be here when we get back."

"I'll make sure he is," Silena said. She sounded relieved and was draping a blanket over Luke's sleeping form at the table.

"I'll get my bag," Not-Annabeth said, like this was a fucking fieldtrip.

Thalia huffed and walked back out onto the porch. Soon, Annabeth and Not-Annabeth followed her out, carrying two bags lopsidedly between them. Thalia called up the moon path.

"Luke wouldn't have been able to come along even if he wasn't pass-out drunk, would he?" Annabeth asked. She reached out a hand to poke tentatively at the moon-path and Thalia caught it before it made contact. There was no telling where Annabeth might end up without a Hunter to guide her path.

"Not unless there's something I don't know," Thalia said. She put a hand on each of the girls' shoulder and walked out of Alameda into May Castellan's front yard.

May Castellan was making sandwiches in the kitchen and didn't look up when they came in, until Not-Annabeth dropped her bag to the floor with a loud thunk.

Not-Annabeth's eyes started glowing and green smoke poured of the bag.

"We are the Oracles of Delphi." Three voices were speaking: Not-Annabeth, May and a dry, raspy thing coming out of bag that sounded like the Oracle at Camp Half-Blood.


	5. Rachel

Rachel ran her tongue over her teeth and swallowed away the taste of prophecy. It still clung to the roof of her mouth, the inside of her skull and the back of her throat like dried blood. There was nothing to it but to wait.

Rachel could be very good at waiting. She could wait for hours, dressed as a statue, for the right person to pass by or on the side of a road, waiting for the right car.

"What the ever loving fuck!" That was Thalia, her eyes blown too wide and the light below her skin fit to bursting.

Ha. Rachel knew all about that, didn't she? No such thing as a retired Oracle, after all.

May held out a glass of Kool-Aid to Rachel, who nodded her thanks, took it and drank from it in small sips, trying not to let the taste get to her. Prophecy and Kool-Aid was a bit like drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth, except it tasted awful. 

"I'm with Thalia on this one," Annabeth said. "What the fuck?"

"You should sit down," Rachel told Thalia and Annabeth, pulling a chair away from the table to do that very thing herself.

They stayed standing. 

"No, really," Rachel continued, as she cleared the chair's seat from May's years-old lunchboxes for her son, "you should. You're going to want to, at any rate."

Annabeth went through the same process and sat down. 

Thalia glared at her and Rachel. She notched an arrow in her bow, but didn't draw it and went to stand behind Annabeth. She made a 'go ahead' gesture at Rachel with her bow.

Rachel waited for her to sit down.

Thalia kept glaring and started raising her bow.

Rachel sighed, then took a deep breath and said, "I'm from a future where Camp Half-Blood loses the war."

She did not say which war. She didn't tell them how Luke had become a martyr to end the Titan War. She didn't tell them how Octavian and Camp Jupiter had marched on Camp Half-Blood, how Nico had miscalculated his last shadowjump in his haste and how the Athena Parthenos had dragged him to his death in the lake, how Reyna had given her life so Rachel could strike with May Castellan the deal that would save all their lives, even Luke's. 

_Especially_ Luke's. 

That had been the deal. _My son's life for your friends'._

She didn't tell them how she had said _Yes_ , because what else could she have done? She didn't tell them how much it had hurt when she and May had combined their oracular powers to send her consciousness back in time to when Rachel had merely been a potential Oracle and not the Oracle herself. She didn't say that as much as becoming Oracle had hurt the first time, this had been worse, because the other two Oracles had been pulling at her mind to see how her future had come to pass while Rachel-the-Oracle had been erasing Just-Rachel even though she was both of them and there hadn't been three Oracles since the Celts had walked on Delphi.

Dead, Oracles two, for a victory and a storm. Dead, Oracle one, for cursed gold to bring down Rome.

She said none of that, but she didn't lie. She was the Oracle. Oracles don't lie, as a rule. 

"Bullshit," Thalia said.

"Timetravel is not a thing," Annabeth said at the same time. "The science of it is..." She fell silent, because arguing theoretical physics with the daughter of a sky god in the room was somewhat hypocritical.

"The timetravel in an Oracle thing," Rachel told Annabeth. Then, to prove she was telling the truth, she added, "Thalia. You have a brother named Jason who ate a stapler when he was two." 

"Had," Thalia tried to correct, but her hands were shaking around her bow and arrow. 

"No," Rachel said, smiling, "have." She could give Thalia this much, at least. 

Thalia pulled out a chair and sat down. When May offered her a glass of Kool-Aid, she took it absent-mindedly, her other hand still holding her bow.

Rachel turned back to Annabeth. "Believe it or not, we are friends, in this other life of mine."

"You're right. I don't believe you," Annabeth said. Her voice was dry like bitter sarcasm and her eyes as sharp as the knife she was no doubt getting ready to stab Rachel with, under the table.

"Your fatal flaw is hubris," Rachel said. 

"I'm a child of Athena,” Annabeth said. "This is hardly surprising."

"When the sirens sang to you, you saw New York as you would have built it. Need I continue?" Rachel could, if she had to, but she would rather not; Annabeth was her friend. 

Annabeth held up her hands, both conspicuously free of any knife. "Say I believe you -- which I'm not saying I do, but if I did -- why are you here?"

"You and Percy both fall into Tartarus." Rachel raised an eyebrow at Annabeth. If Camp Half-Blood losing the war wasn't reason enough, this should be. Annabeth did not need to know they had both made it out.

"No," Annabeth said, shaking her head, "I mean why are you here, in May Castellan's house?"

"Timetravel is an Oracle thing," Rachel said again. "May is one of the Oracles of Delphi. It is important we all are as close to each other as possible."

She unzipped the bag. Sickly green smoke flowed out as she struggled to pull out the Oracle of Camp Half-Blood.

"How the fuck did you manage to steal the Oracle?" Thalia asked. "You're mortal. Mortals can't get into Camp Half-Blood."

"Well," Rachel said, "yes and no."

"You're definitely got the Oracle's fucking cryptic answers thing right on," Thalia said. 

"Mortals can't cross the boundaries of Camp without an authorisation. That's not the same thing." Rachel scratched the scab on her chin where the dracanae had punched her.

Thalia snorted and rolled her eyes. "I can see why Luke was drinking."

"You're talking about Daedalus' Labyrinth," Annabeth said, voice flat. "You'd need to be a demi-god to get in there and if you're the Oracle, you're _not_ a demigod. Your story doesn't make sense, ergo you're lying. Why are you lying?"

Rachel ran a finger along the rim of her glass then got up to pour herself a glass of water. May's all-seeing Oracle eyes followed her around the room. She sat back down.

"I'm not lying, but you're right. I'm not a demigod." She wasn't sure how Annabeth had learned about what made people able to see through the Mist -- being a mortal, through and through, without a drop of godly blood in you for the magic to take root in, was what did it --, but she found she wasn't surprised. If anyone would what to learn such a thing, of course it would be Annabeth.

True mortals happened rarely, but they were no rarer than children with blond hair born to two black-haired parents. They were a lot rarer than blonds, because being able to see the monsters meant that, sooner or later, the monsters would be able to see you.

And monsters very much do not like to be seen.

Rachel hunched in on herself. She knew monsters far too well. She was, after all, one of them herself.

"Right. So you wanna explain what the fuck this is?" Thalia had set her glass down the table, untouched.

"Two weeks ago, Leo Valdez crossed the state line into New Jersey. Leo is a son of Hephaestus and has been in and out -- mostly out -- of orphanages and schools for difficult children since the age of eight. I promised him Deadalus' workshop if he would open the Labyrinth for me," Rachel said. 

Annabeth gasped with envy, as Rachel knew she would. Even without knowing that Deadalus had lived far longer than any mortal had a right too, Annabeth had had plans of looking for it, maybe, one day. How could she not? It was _Deadalus' workshop_. When she had heard the tone of Annabeth's voice as she said so, Daedalus' laptop on the bed between them, Rachel had been sure that Annabeth still believed that was another workshop somewhere, one as glorious as the one she had dreamed as a child, before the war had started. 

Two years ago now and months into the future. Di immortales, but Rachel hated time travel. Your friends did not know you and died before they had a chance to and so she did not mention that Leo had had to light himself on fire and melt Deadalus before he could kill either of them. She did not mention, either, that Mrs O'Leary was, at the end, a hellhound and the demigod a hellhound would not be able to kill in frenzied revenge was not born yet, die though the hellhound might in the process.

Death by fire was never pleasant. As Oracle and chosen of Apollo, god of the Sun, Rachel was all too aware of that.

"As for finding my way to Camp Half-Blood, there is an opening of the Labyrinth inside of it, and my sight is true," Rachel added. True sight was Rachel's gift and her curse. "From there, I arranged for Luke to go through the Little Tiber. I knew the river would drain away the Mark of Achilles."

She didn't tell them she knew this because Percy had told her it had. Let them assume she knew because she was the Oracle and knew the future; it was true enough, in its way.

"It is a Greek blessing, you see," Rachel continued, "and what Rome couldn't steal from Greece, it has always destroyed."

"Whoa, back it up," Thalia said. She was holding her hands out in a T shape. Rachel figured she was signalling a time-out, rather than holding up her own initial -- Thalia wasn't half as conceited as Zeus was, after all. "What's the Little Tiber? No, wait, Luke had _the Mark of Achilles_?"

"I told you," Annabeth said, smugness practically pouring from her like smoke from the Oracle.

Thalia broke the letter her hands had been making. "If Luke can't host Kronos, what happens?"

Rachel shrugged. She had no way to know in the amount of detail Thalia clearly expected her too, but her money was on Ethan Nakamura. His mother was Nemesis and for now she sided with Kronos; her blessing would not be hard to get. And he had made a deal with her that his actions would impact the course of the war.

Rachel's war had been lost already and this was her second chance. She would fight it, tooth and nail and prophecy. It would kill her, of course, but she had never expected to get of this alive.

This was no Christmas Carol. Once the night was over, the Ghost of Oracle Past would be nothing more than dust, the Ghost of Oracle Present a madwoman who saw too much -- had always seen too much, would always see too much -- and the Ghost of Oracle Future would disappear and turn to smoke. That was the deal, that was how prophecy worked, that was the rule, same as Oracles did not lie.

"My son," May asked, for once with eyes that saw nothing more than what was in front of her, "he is safe?"

"For now," Rachel said. A lie, of course, but a pretty one.

Rachel had been friends with Percy far too long not to learn how to break a few rules.

Fuck prophecy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rachel references [the 279 BCE Celtic attack on Delphi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_settlement_of_Eastern_Europe#Attack_on_Delphi).


End file.
